Research has revealed that children above the age of four are overlooked for adoption in favour of babies and toddlers.
The new research comes from Barnardo’s Scotland and found that babies and toddlers were far more likely to be adopted than older children. The stats were published in their report titled Too Old at Four?
Councils in England are to merge services to improve adoption rates according to plans to be announced in the Queen’s speech. The move comes following as adoption is “happening at too small and localised a scale” according to the Department for Education.
The new bill will force authorities to merge local adoption services if they fail to do so themselves within two years.
The Child and Families Act 2014 (CFA) was enacted in March 2014 and has fundamentally changed the impetus of what Parliament see as important within family structure. Prior to April 2014, an order for a child arrangement, formerly known as a contact order, could only be made under section 8 of the Children Act 1989. However, Section 9 of the CFA has amended this with the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (ACA), with the insertion of section 51A and 51B. These provisions now provide the court with a specific power to make an order for post-adoption contact when the court is making an adoption order or when an adoption order has previously been issued.
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New analysis of the British Social Attitudes survey, published by NatCen Social Research during gay adoption week, has found that men take a more conservative stance on gay adoption and parenting.
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